Chapter 6

Chapter 6

KADE

She didn't scream. She didn't cry out. She just bent forward until her forehead touched the dirt, and she stayed there. Her shoulders shook. Through the bond, I felt it. A grief so heavy and so deep it almost dropped me to the ground where I stood.

I stayed in the trees. I didn't go to her. She didn't want me there. I was the last person on earth she wanted to see.

After a long time, she got up. She wiped her face with the back of her hand and walked away from the graves, down a side road. I knew where she was going.

Her mother's house.

The walls were still standing, barely. The roof was gone. She stepped inside through the empty doorway and knelt down in the ashes. She dug through them with her hands, slowly, carefully, like she was looking for something. A cup. A ring. Anything left of the life she had before.

She stopped. She picked something up. It was small. It caught the last of the sunlight and flashed silver.

She stared at it for a long moment. Then she looked around, quick and nervous, and slipped it into the pocket of the shirt.

I wondered what it was. I told myself I would ask her later.

Then the wind changed.

And I smelled them.

Wolves. Not mine. Rogues. Three of them. The stink of them hit me all at once. Old blood, wet fur, and hunger.

They were coming out of the woods on the far side of the village. Low to the ground. Moving fast. Moving straight toward the house where Elena was kneeling.

Rogues don't come this far into the valley in summer. There's too much open ground, too many humans. They stay up in the mountains where it's safe. But these three were here. And they weren't sniffing around the ruins for scraps. They walked right past the graves. They walked right past everything.

They were hunting her.

I ran.

Elena heard them before she saw them. She scrambled up out of the ashes and backed into the corner of the broken house. The first rogue stepped into the doorway. It was huge and gray, with yellow teeth and one milky eye. It growled low in its throat.

She didn't scream. She grabbed a burnt piece of wood from the floor and held it up like a sword. Her hands were shaking.

Brave. Stupid and brave.

The rogue jumped at her.

I hit it from the side before it reached her.

We rolled across the ash floor, snarling, biting. I got my teeth into its neck and shook it hard. It howled. Then the second rogue landed on my back, and I felt its claws rip down my side.

Behind me, Elena screamed.

Not from fear. From pain. I had forgotten. Every wound I took, she took too.

I twisted and threw the second rogue into the wall. The old stones cracked. It didn't get up. I turned back to the first one and finished it.

The third rogue had stopped in the doorway. It looked at its two dead friends. Then it looked at me. For a second, it didn't look like a wild animal at all. It looked like it was thinking.

Then it turned and ran into the trees.

I wanted to chase it. Every part of me wanted to chase it and find out who sent it. But Elena was on the floor behind me, holding her side and gasping. I couldn't leave her.

I shifted back. It hurt more than usual. Blood ran down my ribs from the claw marks. I pulled on the trousers from around my neck with shaking hands and turned around.

She was sitting against the wall. There were three long red scratches down her side, showing through the torn shirt. My scratches. Her blood.

She stared up at me. Her brown eyes were huge. She didn't say anything. She didn't try to run.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

She didn't answer.

I should have picked her up and carried her home. I should have wrapped her side and gotten her away from this place before that third rogue came back with friends.

But I couldn't. Not yet.

I walked out of the broken house. I walked back up the road, past the church, into the field with the apple trees. I felt her following me, slow and unsteady, a few steps behind. I didn't stop her.

I went to one grave near the middle. The wooden marker was a little crooked. I had carved the name on it with my own knife, two nights ago, by the light of the burning houses.

I knelt down in front of it. I put my hand flat on the fresh dirt.

For a moment, I was twelve years old again. Lost in the woods. Bleeding. And a kind woman with warm brown eyes was kneeling over me, telling me I was going to be fine.

"I'm sorry, Martha," I whispered. "I came too late."

Behind me, I heard a sharp breath.

"How," Elena said slowly, her voice cold and shaking, "do you know my mother's name?"